As identity fraud rises, US customers need increased vigilance on security issues

The research company says that the results are record high since Javelin began tracking identity fraud in 2004. Furthermore, the study also found that the criminals adapted to all the latest prevention techniques to net 2 million more victims in 2016. The report, which was based on address-based surveys of 5,028 US consumers, also found:

Account takeover bounces back. After reaching a low point in 2014, both account takeover incidents (where a criminal takes control of an account) and losses rose notably in 2016. Total account takeover losses increased 61%, to USD 2.3 billion, and incidents were up 31%. During 2016, victims paid an average of USD 263 in out-of-pocket costs and spent 20.7 million hours to resolve this type of fraud - 6 million more hours than in 2015.

Account takeover on mobile phone became nearly twice as prevalent in only one year. Mobile phone accounts represented 12% of all takeovers in 2016, up from 7% in 2015. Cybercriminals sought to monetize mobile accounts and leverage them to compromise the mobile-based alerting and authentication solutions that financial institutions, issuers, and other businesses rely on to prevent fraud.

Card not present (CNP) fraud rose significantly. EMV chip and pin cards have closed off opportunities for point-of-sale fraud, so the criminals have moved online. CNP fraud increased by 40% in 2016. In fact, 3.42% of all consumers had their cards abused by this type of fraud.

New account fraud (NAF) continues unabated. In NAF, a fraudster takes a person’s information and opens up a new account in the victim’s name. NAF increased from 0.62% in 2015, to 0.74% of consumers in 2016. Fraudulent credit cards proved most attractive, rising 21% for new fraudulent accounts opened in 2015, to 30% in 2016.